The necklace that changed their lives: How the £26,000 piece of jewellery tore them apart - then brought them closer together

When estate agent Jonell McLain hit on the idea of finding a group of women to club together with her and buy a stunning £26,000 diamond necklace, she had hoped that she might also gain new friends. Within months her dream had come true: as well as a timeshare in an exquisite and otherwise unaffordable piece of jewellery, the women had forged a strong bond. What Jonell had not bargained for, however, was the row that nearly tore them apart.

During December 2005, Priscilla van Gundy and her husband Tom hosted their son's wedding. Tom had been instrumental in the story of the necklace: it was in his jeweller's shop that Jonell had first seen it and had conceived her time-share idea.

Tom, fascinated by the group of vivacious women she brought with her, had agreed to sell it to her at a ludicrous knock-down price on one condition: that she allow his workaholic and lonely wife Priscilla to be part of the group.

Diamonds are forever: Some of the women who shared the £26,000 cost of the jewellery

All the women came to the wedding and, to complete the glittering occasion, Priscilla lent her future daughter-in-law the necklace.

Patti Channer, another group member, was so moved by the sight of the bride wearing the magnificent diamonds that afterwards she offered the necklace to a friend's daughter for her forthcoming wedding. Patti didn't have a daughter, but she doted on those of her friends.

When news that the necklace was about to be 'something borrowed' spread, the reaction was swift - and furious.

For some members of the group, the fact that their daughters could wear the diamonds when they married had been one of the reasons they'd bought the necklace in the first place.

Now an outsider bride would be wearing it before their own offspring. The mothers complained. They didn't like this turn of events.

This is the £26,000 necklace that nearly tore the group of women apart

And they didn't like hearing about the loan through the grapevine. Shouldn't they have been consulted? The wedding wasn't even during Patti's month with the necklace. She borrowed it to lend it to a third party. Was this the way the women were going to operate?

All hell broke loose. At the next meeting, Patti opened with an apology. Her intention had been only to share the necklace, she said. Isn't that what the group was all about? Well, yes, said Nancy Huff. But weddings were different.

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Weddings were sacred events and the necklace was, among other things, a family heirloom for those who belonged to the group. There's a difference between lending it to someone for a social occasion, she said, and lending it to someone for a wedding.

Patti looked at Nancy incredulously. Could this be the same generous, compassionate Nancy she'd known for 20 years? What had happened to her?

'There's no difference,' declared Jonell, the group's founder. She, too, had a daughter, but no sympathy for the disgruntled mothers. 'Sharing is sharing.'

Others disagreed. If it was too easily available, argued one mother, the necklace would lose its value. 'If anyone can wear it for her wedding, then it won't be special for our daughters.'

Visionary: Jonell McLain wanted the necklace to be shared by people outside the group

'No,' argued Jonell. 'What makes the necklace special is the sharing.'

'I think we should go back to sharing the necklace just among the 13 of us, the way it was at the beginning,' said a third mother.

'You've got to be kidding!' Jonell exclaimed. 'What's happening to this group?'

'We just want to preserve the specialness of the necklace for our daughters,' someone answered. 'I don't want my daughter to not want to wear the necklace because so many others have worn it before her.'

'You're forgetting the basic premise of this experiment,' Jonell reminded them. 'It's about inclusion, not exclusion.'

Jonell was losing her patience. She'd shared the necklace with the 12 of them. How dare they not share it with others?

'You're telling me that I have to go through some committee before I can share this necklace with someone? This was my idea, and the necklace is for everyone,' she flared. 'There are no constraints.'

The room grew very quiet. Finally, Nancy, Jonell's oldest friend in the group, spoke. 'Yes, it was your idea, Jonell. But the necklace isn't just about you any more. We're a group now.'

Half the group said nothing. Emotions surged and spilled and exploded. By the end of the evening, the women had resolved nothing.

Nancy went home upset. She felt like leaving the group. Jonell went home upset. The biggest bonus for all of them from her idea had turned out not to be the actual necklace - wonderful though it was - but the friendships they had forged as a result of sharing it.

Each woman had the necklace for four weeks before passing it on to the next group member; they met each month for the handover and the meetings had become a highlight for each of them.

The Experiment: The women developed a strong bond after putting in for an unaffordable piece of jewellery

Despite their differences - some were old friends, others had never met before; some were housewives, some worked full-time; some were married, others divorced, still others childless - they had bonded in a way they would never have imagined possible.

Now, just one year on, all that looked as though it was to change. Jonell wished she had never started it.

No one had listened to the debate with more interest than Mary O'Connor.

Mary was one of the few who'd written a cheque for the necklace without seeing it. She didn't need to. The lure had been one thing, and one thing only: she wanted the necklace to lend it to her daughter Karen on her wedding day.

At 62, Mary was the oldest member of the group, but she still partied and dressed like a rock star. She wore snug, pastel leather jackets, cleavage-revealing camisoles, mid-thigh-length skirts. She still joined the crush at rock concerts with her second husband, a space systems engineer ten years her junior.

Karen, 39, was a younger version of her mother with supermodel looks - an animated, pretty face and a curvy, athletic body. The two women worked together at Mary's computerised sign business and were best friends.

The loner: It was Priscilla Van Gundy who sparked debate among the group when a woman at her daughter-in-law's wedding wanted to borrow the necklace

'When my mum told me I could wear the necklace on my wedding day, I thought: "Yeah, right. That'd be nice, but it'll never happen" ,' said Karen. 'Then I saw her wearing the necklace at a family party, and it changed everything. She just glowed and I thought, "That necklace will be so beautiful to wear on my wedding day."

'But now, if everyone in town's going to wear it, it doesn't feel special any more. I'd rather wear my grandmother's pearls.'

Mary didn't care that another young woman would be wearing the diamond necklace before her daughter. But she did care that her daughter wasn't as excited about wearing it as she once had been.

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the argument, Nancy Huff turned to her daughter Christen, a 27-year- old nursing student.

'Are we being selfish?' she asked. Christen's response was blunt. 'I think you're losing sight of what's important,' she said.

'It sounds to me like you mothers are behaving as though you're in the playground. It doesn't matter to me who wears the necklace. I still want to wear it on my wedding day and for the significant moments of my life.'

Christen suggested keeping a necklace journal so that women who wore the necklace could write about what the experience meant to them. A journal would grant the necklace not only a history but also a soul.

Amid a flurry of apologies, Nancy emailed Christen's idea to the group. They agreed. A nursing student had resolved the controversy with a creativity and graciousness that assured the legacy of the diamonds for the next generation.

The controversy over sharing took its toll on Jonell, however. Something's got to give, she decided - and that something was running the meetings. She was too talkative, too opinionated, too forceful, she thought to herself. Her dominance inevitably provoked opposition.

'You wear it, you chair it,' she announced at the next meeting.

'Great idea!' said one woman after another. Jonell laughed to herself.

I wonder how long they'd been wishing for that, she thought.

Jonell had started a group of what she'd hoped would be like-minded women, only to discover that each had her own reason for buying the necklace, and each woman's reason wasn't the same as her reason.

Jonell hadn't been looking for support or sisterhood. She'd attracted female friends all her life - she owned 14 bridesmaids' dresses to prove it.

For her, the necklace had been a social experiment. She'd seen it as a vehicle for her utopian vision. She'd wanted the group to raise women's consciousness; she'd hoped to encourage them to read more books and to support feminist causes. But she hadn't banked on the diversity of the women, and she hadn't envisaged the friction.

And yet that friction was key. The conflicts were the very thing that provoked the women to think about who they were and what their lives were about.

The controversies pushed them to define their own values more clearly, to take a stand, speak up for what they would and would not support. Some softened their loud voices; some strengthened their soft voices. Some found their voices for the first time. In this safe community of women, each grew more confident.

Jonell had had a strong, authentic voice to begin with, but she changed, too. She learned what all strong people inevitably have to learn - that they have limits.

To keep her vision intact, to keep the group together, she had had to learn the necessity of compromise. Jonell does not have a conventional domestic life.

For the past decade, she and her second husband have lived in separate houses and enjoyed trysts at weekends.

'Living apart gives us all the advantages of an intimate relationship - the familiarity, the safe sex, a date when you need one - without the daily tensions,' she says.

'It's nice to have a man in my life, but I don't need one all the time - rather like a diamond necklace.' Soon her daughter, who lives with her, will be leaving home and Jonell will be alone for the first time in 28 years. 'Who am I going to talk to?' she asks.

The answer, of course, is her friends from the necklace group. They have become a family. Daily emails between the women relay news of children's successes, parents' hospitalisations, grandchildren's christenings.

Today, the necklace itself is rarely part of their conversation. But, as Jonell points out: 'The more we've shared the necklace, the more profound the experience has become.'